“Down, guys, down,” Heath cut her off, making let’s-get-calm gestures with his hands. “You both make important points.” He looked to Ryan. “We have a responsibility to speak truth to power, even when it will upset people in power.” He turned to Natalie. “And we have a responsibility to verify what we report.” Finally he turned to one of the robotic cameras. “As a journalist, I won’t back down. I’m going to do my job. And no one in power will stop me.” He continued looking into the camera, with a smoldering intensity.

In her ear Natalie could hear, “Hard out in five!”

Ryan broke the silence. “Heath, fearless journalism is the best journalism.”

“Four, three, two,” the voice in her ear said.

“Amen,” Heath said with a satisfied smile.

The show cut to commercial.

When the lights went off, Heath high-fived Ryan and made a shooting gun gesture to Natalie.

“Great job, guys! Loved the conflict. You’re like the Bickersons!” he said, putting on the Bose headphones and picking up another stack of blue cards for his next segment.

Natalie was shaking. That had felt like a setup. Had they agreed ahead of time to make her their foil? Or had she been too passive, too polite, about getting her points across?

She thought of her dad’s words, be noisy.

If he’d seen that segment he probably would have said be absent.

She made her way to the door with her head down, wanting to get out of there fast.

“We’ve got chemistry, girl.” Ryan said, giving her a hip bump as he caught up with her. “Total TV chemistry. Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

She said nothing, caught off guard.

He flashed her a big smile and said, “Let’s definitely do it again,” and hurried away.

Matt was waiting in the hall outside the studio.

“What was that? You didn’t get yourself in the conversation enough,” he said, hands on hips, in the voice of an angry stage mother.

Natalie shook her head. “Are you kidding? They didn’t—”

Matt put up a palm. “No excuses,” he said and from the tone he might as well have followed it with young lady. “You let Ryan take over!”

“Let him? What was I supposed to—”

“Ignore him!”

“—do when he kept interrupting—”

“Talk over him! LIKE YOU DO WITH ME!” Matt yelled.

She stared at him. He nodded at her smugly. “You’re fully capable of it.”

“On the bright side,” he said, “it’s going to be great for your VOP. On the less bright side, it’ll help Ryan’s, too, so we need to find a way to differentiate ourselves.”

“Oh sure,” was all Natalie could manage. She felt the phone in her bag vibrate. Summoning up the last of her will, she reached for it.